Stage mom

November 13, 2009 - 10:01 AM by Jessica · 1 Comment
Filed under: Art, General, Immigrant Moments, Israeliness, Movies

Our director, Eran Riklis

I became a stage mother this week. Through a series of amusing connections and events (my babysitter’s younger sister has a starring role in an Israeli television show, Room Service, and the casting director asked her mother if she knew any babies in Jerusalem who could be cast in a new Eran Riklis film), my boys are two of the babies in Eran Riklis’s latest movie, Human Resources.

Set in Jerusalem, and based on the 2004 A.B. Yehoshua book, The Mission of the Human Resources Manager, it’s about a human resources manager in a big Jerusalem bakery during the dark days of the second intifada. A Russian worker dies in a suicide bombing attack and when no one claims her body, he has to take her back to Russia.

Filming is taking place in Jerusalem and Romania, and we were part of the Jerusalem filming, which was set in the ghost-town like atmosphere of the Schneller Army base, in the Geula neighborhood. Our boys’ film father was Mark Ivanir, a Russian-born actor who came to Israel in 1972 and now splits his time between Israel and the U.S. Eran Riklis, the director and a big bear of a guy, was genial enough with the babies, although a tad confused about what 12-month-olds are supposed to be doing. He wanted them to crawl, but also sit quietly in an infant seat; start working at 4:30 in the afternoon, and go strong until 8 pm. And when I questioned whether a 12-month-old sitting in an infant seat perched on a chest was realistic (and safe), I could see the word balloons next to their mouths, saying “Overprotective American mother!”

We worked it out, the boys cooperated for the most part, and now we just sit tight and wait for the movie premiere, with Ziv and Lev’s names in the credits. And it’s probably safe to say that I’ll never do this again, but you never know.

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Tags: A.B. Yehoshua, Eran Riklis, Geula, Human Resources, intifada, lemon tree, Mark Iviner

Hardly a �Lemon�

December 5, 2008 - 10:50 AM by Harry · Leave a Comment
Filed under: coexistence, General, History and Culture, Life, Movies, Pop Culture

Lemon Tree For those of us who live in the Modiin area, the reality of being surroun

ded by Arab villages is a part of daily life. The 443 Highway, which connects greater metro Tel Aviv with greater metro Jerusalem � Modiin sitting ab

out halfway in between � snakes alongside the Green Line for its main

stretches. I used to live in Jerusalem, though, where the Muslim call to prayer could be heard many times daily. The Sharon region, which stretches north and slightly east of Tel Aviv, is itself adjacent to Samaria, where the bulk of the non-Gazan, non-Galilean Palestinian population is located.

So for much of Israel, the reality of living in a Jewish homeland that�s situated in a Muslim-centric region extends well beyond our news headlines, our military-security efforts as a collective and the diplomacy moves of our politicians. The children of Isaac and the children of Ishmael are neighbors here.

Fictional community Tzur Hasharon, apparently located in the Sharon region, is the setting of Eran Riklis� recent movie, Lemon Tree (trailer streams here), which serves to juxtapose the public-collective Jewish-Muslim relations with the personal-neighborly ones. Of course, it�s the latter that comes off as more connected to reality in the movie � not such a stretch � when the Israeli defense minister�s wife forges an unlikely friendship with a Muslim neighbor, whose lemon grove ends up in the middle of an international media and diplomacy firestorm.

Riklis� likewise nuanced 2004 movie The Syrian Bride garnered several international awards following its overseas cinematic distribution run. And now Lemon Tree has joined the stable of local films enjoying critical, box office and statuette-based success outside of Israel.

We at Israelity have our fingers crossed for at least one win for the movie at the European Film Academy�s European Film Awards tomorrow night in Copenhagen. Held somewhere different each year (except every other year, when it always takes place in Berlin), the 2008 European Film Awards have nominated Lemon Tree in two categories: Hiam Abbass for Best Actress, and Suha Arraf and Eran Riklis for Best Screenplay. The latter category impressively includes another Israeli nominee, the beloved animated documentary Waltz with Bashir.

While our hopes are high, The Jerusalem Post�s Hannah Brown points out that The Band�s Visit won Israeli actor Sasson Gabbai a 2007 Best Actor award, which might make more Israeli prizes less likely. We shall see very soon.

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